Nurse takes inspiring run from Canada to Mexico

Four-time cancer survivor and nurse Helene Neville is famous for her run across the U.S. in 2010. Now, this superstar is taking an inspiring run from Canada to the Mexican border, stopping along the way to talk to doctors, nurses and health practitioners.

Watch her story here:

“I’ve always had a passion for helping people…really helping and being that voice for the underserved, being the voice for the people that are invisible or not noticed or nameless and faceless,” she told KVAL.com. As someone who has spent significant time as both a nurse and patient, she feels she has important experience from both sides of the healthcare system.

One super sweet part of her story and journey? Her brother died unexpectedly in February, and she is now carrying his ashes with her as she runs. “I said, ‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,’ and then when the ashes came I’m like, ‘Heck yes he is heavy,’” she told KVAL.com while laughing. So as she goes, she’s scattering his ashes along the way.

Her goal is to complete the 1,500-mile journey by mid-June. “It’s such a slow pace that I get to smell all the smells, some good, some bad. I get to enjoy nature and the sounds and its at a pace where you really experience life,” Neville told KVAL.com. “I look at the speeding cars going by me and think I’m in such a better place right now than everybody in their cars and if people just stopped and got out of their car and walked or ran or jogged just to experience what you can experience by slowing down that pace, it’s a pretty amazing feeling.”